Shake the labels and live your fantasy

Nicole Kenwood-Brown is not into labels, and it is that conviction that has seen her penning her first book titled,Shake Those Labels and Live You Fantasy. She is also in the process of creating a programme called ‘The Label Free Wife’ – where the intention is to equip women who are desirous of escaping difficult marriages, for one reason or another, and are unable to do so.

The end result is for them to thrive and grow, to move away from whatever negative labels or beliefs that would limit them from experiencing their greatest life (fantasy).

Kenwood-Brown is a medical transcriptionist working full time, as well as a mother and wife. She offers coaching/counselling and mentorship predominantly to wives, but also to couples. An ordained minister, trained coach, counsellor, speaker and radiographer with a bachelor’s degree in biblical and pastoral studies, she said she has always had a desire for more.

In a one-on-one with Family and Religion, Kenwood-Brown expounded on her journey from childhood to that place of confidence where she now sits.

Her life’s experiences form the catalyst for which her book is penned, and it has been quite a journey starting from her years as a student at the Dinthill Technical High School in St Catherine where she received many awards and was a prefect. She said, however, that she had to drop out of school, because she wanted to “make way” for her younger siblings to get a chance at an education as well.

With financial struggles a part of her reality, Kenwood-Brown started working at age 17 in order to help support her mother and siblings. While doing so, she made several attempts to go back to school, but gave up because, for her at the time, the priority was putting food on the table.

Looking ahead, she has only one passion and it is what she hopes her book will bring about – to break generational curses! To become and raise up an army of women that will cause their children to say “Wow!”

“So much is stacked against women, yet we are so innovative, creative and resourceful. I want to be one of those who cause women to realise that they can rise above any odds, thrive, not just survive. Like I have always said, ‘you can learn to manipulate your pain for purpose, shake all negative labels and live your wildest God-given fantasies. That’s my passion and mission,” she shared as she opened up old wounds on all that she had to survive to come to that conclusion.

Kenwood-Brown shared that growing up in church, she had always had a love for the Lord and wanted to serve Him and know Him intimately. However, despite that, while in high school she met and fell in love with a married man 12 years her senior.

The relationship was powered by the fact that she had a sick mother and siblings who needed help.

“I hooked up with him and endured four years of physical, emotional, psychological and financial abuse. It was in that relationship that I became acquainted with abuse, drugs, alcohol and the dancehall. In a bid to escape the abuse, I ran into the arms of a worse abuser. At that time, I knew nothing about narcissistic personality disorder and what I was experiencing,” she informed.

Kenwood-Brown shared that despite the multiple acts of open infidelity, and verbal and physical abuse, she continued to hold on for the sake of her son.

It was, however, after two traumatic events in her life that she finally saw the light in letting go for her own self-preservation, and returned to God.

One Sunday afternoon, her lover tossed all her belongings out on the lawn and took away the keys to her house, locking her and her baby outside until evening.

Still, she couldn’t shake the longing for her son to have what she never did – a father, and that kept her hanging on to the abusive relationship. The final blow came one day when her partner, in a rage, held a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her.

“He was so enraged that he was beyond hearing the voices of those around us who were pleading with him to let me go. I finally realised that, for me, it was God’s will or death. I surrendered to Him and, despite my many failures, trip-ups and setbacks since, I have never looked back,” she said of that moment when she decided to give her all to the Lord.

Read the conclusion of Kenwood-Brown’s story in next week’s ‘ Family and Religion’.

familyandreligion@gleanerjm.com